


To Each His Dulcinea

by Hairofgoldeyesofblue



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/M, Gen, Headcanon, Minor Spoilers, Musicals, Post Season 2, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hairofgoldeyesofblue/pseuds/Hairofgoldeyesofblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Will’s hard and fast rule was that he never took dates to the theater with him."</p>
<p>A ficlet examining Will's affair with musicals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Each His Dulcinea

**Author's Note:**

> I got to thinking, "where did Will's love of musicals come from?" and came up with this little headcanon.

It began when Will was in elementary school. His mother took him and his brother and sisters to see _The Sound of Music_ one rainy day when a storm was moving in and John McAvoy was halfway through a bottle of Dewar's. Bobby and Karen were too young to sit still, and Susie was just a baby, but for four hours, Will was enraptured. He sat perched on the edge of his seat with wide eyes, soaking up the story of the father who loved his children and the mother who stood up for them. That spring, he saved up his pocket money so that he could go back and watch it again and again. When he _didn't_ have money and John McAvoy was slurring his words and swinging his fists, Will would take the kids and sneak out of the house. They'd hide in the storm cellar and he'd sing "My Favorite Things" until they fell asleep.

When Will got a little older and things got _really_ bad, he would take his brother and sisters by the hand and tell them that today they weren’t going to go home after school; today they were going to see _Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang,_ or _Hello, Dolly!,_ _or Camelot_. Sometimes, if he was lucky, the kind, older lady at the box office would let Will take them to a show like _Funny Girl_ , even though Susie wasn’t quite old enough for it. Will was always grateful; the younger kids didn’t care so much about the content as they did about getting away from the house for awhile anyway. Will was always fascinated though. He loved the music and the stories and the spectacle, even after John discovered his where they disappeared to so often and gave him a couple of hard swats for being a “sissy.”

While he was at the University of Nebraska, Will saw his first live musical. The tour of _Company_ made a stop in Lincoln and by a stroke of good fortune, he managed to get his hands on a ticket. He sat by himself in the darkened back row of the theater and ducked his head down so that no one would notice the too-young-for-college farmboy in the slightly rumpled shirt and tie wiping away a tear.

With Law School came a move to the east coast. A larger city meant better productions and a more elaborate theater. If he could scrape enough money together with his meager law clerk salary, he’d splurge on a show at the National Theater. Later, when he was working for Bush, and his salary was a little less meager, he could afford the Kennedy Center, and oh, what an experience that was.

After banking his first paycheck as a New York prosecutor Will finally treated himself to a Broadway show; a revival of _Oklahoma_. During his early years in New York, he saw everything he could get a ticket to; _Les Miserables, Merrily We Roll Along, Evita_ (his first and last experience with Andrew Lloyd Webber), _Camelot, Nine…_ Of course he had his favorite shows, but whether the show was whimsical or dramatic, it served its purpose. Musicals were his own private form of therapy. They were a safe haven from the storms of his youth and the tribulations of the present. For a few hours he could sit in the darkened room and ignore the world outside and focus on something that wasn’t work or his family.

Will’s hard and fast rule was that he never took dates to the theater with him. Truthfully, he never went with _anyone_ – except for the time he flew his mother to New York City for her fiftieth birthday so she could see Lauren Bacall in _Woman of the Year._ He simply didn’t want to share his clandestine affair with the theater. He _enjoyed_ going by himself the same way that some people enjoy fishing or hiking; for him, it was just an activity better enjoyed solo.

Mackenzie was the first non-family member to accompany Will to the theater. For days leading up to it, he was a nervous wreck, terrified of showing any sort of vulnerability when it came to this particular interest. Like everything else, she had weaseled his love of musical theater out of him, albeit without much effort, and before he knew it, Mackenzie had conned him into showing her “what all the fuss was about.” And so, Will bought two tickets to the opening night of Jersey Boys – which seemed a safe enough choice – and took his girlfriend of three months dinner and a show after she insisted they make a night of it. (His nerves were quelled somewhat by the sleek black Gucci dress that hugged her body and showed off her legs spectacularly.)

It became their _thing_. Mackenzie liked the more stimulating shows, and Will had settled into a phase of favoring the classics, but their nights in the theater district were something they each looked forward to. Mackenzie often teased him about his love of theater, but it was all light-hearted, and Will would roll his eyes and sing “Bobby and Jackie and Jack” or “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” until she was ready to banish him to the couch.

After their breakup, Will stopped going to the theater. For three years he ignored any mention of the theater district – with the exception of the time his sister Susan and her daughter visited and his niece begged him to get them tickets to _Wicked_ (not one of Will’s prouder moments, but his niece was turning thirteen and it was her first trip to New York, so he thought, _what the hell_.)

Gradually, Will returned to the theater. (He blamed it on the giant billboard in Times Square promoting the revival of _South Pacific_ that had been staring him down for years; time _was_ running out.) During the first year of “ _News Night_ 2.0,” when Mackenzie was back and Will was trying to figure out how his life had taken such an unexpected turn and his stress level was through the roof, he would often sneak out of AWM in the afternoons to catch whatever matinee was playing. He went alone and no one ever found out, and when Nina tried to get him to go to the _Phantom of the Opera_ ’s 10,000th performance, he inwardly cringed and refused.

Once the Genoa fallout had diminished a bit, Will took his new fiancé to see _Once._ It was the first time they had been to the theater together since a trip to see _Spring Awakening_ the week before her confession about Brian. Five minutes into _Once_ Mackenzie burst into tears and proceeded to silently cry through the remainder of the show. Even Will got choked up. He put his arm around her shoulders and reminded himself that this was different from when he would use the theater as an escape; Mackenzie loved him and his father was dead.

It was still his own private sanctuary – his safe haven – and Mackenzie knew that. Sometimes they’d fight and he would find put on his old _Sound of Music_ record to calm down, and other times he would sneak out to a matinee, but when she heard him absentmindedly humming “Falling Slowly,” they both knew everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
